Speaking at a new UK outpost in a province of Iraq once dubbed the “Sunni triangle of death”, he said: “We know external operations have been getting orchestrated to a very significant degree from within the caliphate.

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“Critically from within Raqqa and within Manbij, those are key external operation hubs.
“There is a huge amount of intelligence, documentation, electronic material that has been exploited there that points very directly to plots against all sorts of nations around the world.
“And that has been picked up hard and fast.
“I personally wouldn’t be surprised by anything they think they are capable of putting together.”
The Manjib files detailed specific “threats in Europe” he ominously confirmed.

Armed Forces patrol the perimeter of Camp Havoc

Maj Gen Jones insisted the revelations underlined once more why Britain must help rid the world of “repugnant” ISIS.
He added: “If we want to keep Britain safe, if we want to keep Europe safe, we have got to deal with Daesh.”

This summer the UK boosted the mission by sending 250 soldiers to Al Assad Air Base, in Anbar province to train Iraqi forces, they officially began their mission on November 1st.
It is the biggest single manpower deployment to Iraq since the end of the Iraq War.
Soldiers from 4 Rifles are training Iraqi forces fresh from the frontline battlefield in combat first aid, sniping and bomb hunting tactics.
So far they have trained 200 from their desert base named Camp Havoc situated beneath the Euphrates river valley – 60kms from the frontline with IS – and 150kms from the Syrian border.
They expect to train up to 300 a month when they get up to speed.

Lt Col Carl “Chuckles” Boswell, Commanding Officer of 4 Rifles, said: “They want to come in here and they want to kill us – we have no idea what’s next.”
His biggest fear is a massed ground attack by IS forces.

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He said: “I wouldn’t write it off – it is the most dangerous course of action we plan against.
“The best success story Daesh could write would be to kill a coalition member, including British.”
But Camp Havoc is well protected.
It is a self-contained island of coalition forces, including 2,000 Americans, deep inside the far larger air base which is guarded by 1,000 Iraqi forces.
In the last 12 months there have been rocket attacks – the last in August - plus two attacks by IS squads armed with suicide belts and RPGs, most recently in March.
The infiltrators were wiped out on both occasions by Iraqi forces.

Troops ready themselves for further battles with ISIS

But to tackle the “inherent risk” of operating so close to the frontline 4 Rifles have packed some serious hardware.
A company of men are backed by a fleet of 30 combat vehicles.
It allows the 20 odd trainers to pass on “world leading” soldiering skills to Iraqi forces in safety.
Iraqi assistant staff sergeant , Hussein Mohamad Mazid, 20, suffered shrapnel wounds in an IED strike a month ago which killed is friend.
He said: “We get great benefits from this training. The British have come for nothing, only as friends to look at the long term.”